


don't be my last strange encounter

by getmean



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Beach OVA, Healing -- or at least the beginning of healing, Hurt/Comfort, Loss/Grief/Hurt, M/M, Post-Finale, Reunions, Trans Male Character, but deeper than that it's about how cobb smokes weed and goes for swims alone, on the surface this is about cobb trying to balance what he wants vs when its right to act, t4t
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29247279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: Many times, Cobb has imagined leaning over and touching his fingertips to the helmet. Will it be warm, soaking up the sun? Or will it be cold, colder than anything is in the deserts of Tatooine? In his fantasies he says,I can see you. Behind the glass, I can see you.And his imagined Din lifts a hand to touch the sharp underside of the helmet, and says,I know.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth
Comments: 15
Kudos: 89





	don't be my last strange encounter

**Author's Note:**

> this was an askbox prompt by a very big-brained anon who wanted to see more t4t dincobb, at the beach! i had to get inventive with the definition of beach considering tatooine = deserts (or maybe it doesn't, i don't understand star wars) but i think it works :~) hope you enjoy!

When Din turns his face to the side, Cobb can see the curve of his face behind the sleek, T-shaped glass of his visor. It only happens when the sun hits him from behind. When it’s low and clinging hold to his shoulders, the two of them sat together under the beating-down heat of two suns. Cobb, he’s sweating; can feel it slick between his shoulder blades and on the flat of his chest beneath his shirt. Din looks as unbothered as always. That helmet giving away nothing; no discomfort, no impatience, no nothing. 

Except the curve of a cheek. Cobb knows he’s got it bad, by how that sliver of the man’s face makes his heart beat hard in his chest. Sometimes, he thinks about pointing it out. Din’s been essentially sleeping on his couch for a week, ‘essentially’ meaning Cobb has never actually seen him asleep, and has started to doubt he even does. There’s been plenty of time to do it. Lazy evenings where the suns are setting, low and orange in the sky, washing everything they touch over in a light as monochromatic as Tatooine itself. Bright mornings spent over coffee in the kitchen, which Cobb sucks down like he needs it to live, and Din lets grow cold by his elbow. But he’s been different since his return. Without his child, without his ship; a strange slump to his shoulders that the beskar seems to battle against. Cobb’s too afraid that if he drew his attention to it, Din would do something to keep his face hidden completely.

Many times, Cobb has imagined leaning over and touching his fingertips to the helmet. Will it be warm, soaking up the sun? Or will it be cold, colder than anything is in the deserts of Tatooine? In his fantasies he says, _I can see you. Behind the glass, I can see you._ And his imagined Din lifts a hand to touch the sharp underside of the helmet, and says, _I know_.

His cigarette rasps in the silence. Cobb has been many places in his so-far long life, but nowhere does silence like Tatooine. Din’s gloves creak, as he flexes his hands in his lap. The two of them sharing the shade of the awning that hangs from the side of Cobb’s house; sat next to each other in lawn chairs, Din a slip of black and gleaming beskar in the sunlight. His maddening cheekbone, the long splay of his lashes when he blinks. He’d given up the armour after his first night. Now Cobb is free to stare at the lines of his body as much as he likes. His soft chest and his soft stomach; narrow hips and strong arms. 

It’s funny, the things the heart can get fixated on when there’s little else available. After Din’s first time in Mos Pelgo after he’d left, Cobb had spent many hot nights tossing and turning in bed. Thinking about the curve of skin he’d glimpsed, a wrist pale between black glove and black undershirt. Because without evidence, the brain spirals. Drove him mad thinking about the skin that must lurk underneath the armour; scarred, maybe, but soft, sensitive. Unseen by anyone else. Untouched by anyone else. 

It’s enough to make a lonely old man mad, isn’t it?” 

At Cobb’s side, Din shifts; narrows Cobb’s attention back down to the world around him. The sand under his bare feet, almost too hot to bear. The dry air. The sun, his sweat. Dramatically, he groans; slumps low in his chair. 

Very steadily, Din asks, “Are you hot?” Like it’s not so boiling that the air is wavy above the horizon, like his own armour hasn’t been abandoned inside. Like Din can’t see he’s sweating; a ring of damp on his chest, and just below that softness there too, slightly darker than the washed-out black of his undershirt. 

“I’m hot,” Cobb says. He’s wilted in his chair, cigarette wobbling between his lips as he mutters, “We need to go cool off. Need to head somewhere.”

Really, Din’s been worrying him. Cobb can wax poetic about that slip of stubbled cheek through his visor, but when it comes down to it, he’s concerned. The Din who had slain the Krayt dragon had been steady, resolute, a little dry. Quietly confident in a way that doesn’t draw attention. But now, shit. They’ve been sitting an hour or so in relative silence. Cobb has smoked a bowl, smoked a cigarette, and napped. Din, as far as he can tell, has been wallowing. 

“Where would we go?”

Details of what has happened between then and now are spotty. Most of it Cobb has pulled from thin air, and from watching Din. The child’s absence is a chasm. Never did Cobb think he could feel the loss of something so small and so largely-quiet. 

“Tatooine has more to offer than _sand_ ,” Cobb says, and then stands, feeling decisive. It was the nap. He always feels good after a bowl, and a nap, and a little time looking at Din’s fragment of a profile. 

Din is looking up at him, hands folded over each other on his belly. “Like what?” he asks, sounding unconvinced. Not for the first time, Cobb finds himself on the edge of asking, _what is it you thought you’d do here?_ But he keeps his mouth shut. He can respect a good wallow. He’d been working himself into a pretty good rut when Din had arrived, actually. 

“Like _water_ ,” he says, and kicks the leg of Din’s chair. 

————

Some people say that thousands of years ago, Tatooine was all water. Fields of it, so much that the people who lived there then would’ve just about killed for a little dryness. Rain, storms, swollen rivers breaking their banks. On hot, dry days, the planet would gleam. But over the years it retreated underground as the planet heated up, and as towns developed and worked to corral the water into reservoirs and lakes and backyard ponds. See, the thing about nature is that it doesn’t like being told what to do. So Tatooine stopped gleaming. The people kept pushing the water into tighter and tighter spaces until they looked around one day and realised it was all gone, and only sand remained. Miles of the unforgiving stuff, red as blood. 

Cobb’s old enough to remember when water farming was about catching the water from the dirt rather than the air. Just like there’s water farms now, with their bristling herds of vaporators, back then they used something different. These long, wicked tunnelling probes; diving through the sand to seek out the water chambers deep under the ground. And then those dried up too. Now water is a commodity, something to be rationed, and Tatooine is as arid as a place can be. 

Still. Cobb considers himself a man who can get his hands on anything, given some notice and maybe a little something to sweeten the deal. Lucky for Din, his company is sweeter than anything that could line Cobb’s pockets, even though the guy has been largely withdrawn since he arrived. Cobb doesn’t have much want for money anymore anyway. He’s old enough and ugly enough to know what to prioritise. 

Din has to cling hold of Cobb’s waist and ride pillion when they take the speeder out. His warm front to Cobb’s back, gloved hands locked together over his belly. Cobb, he watches the red world rush by, and thinks of eyelashes, of stubble, of faces the sun has never touched. 

Water has a hard time staying put on Tatooine. Empty a cup of it into the sand and it’ll be dry before it can even soak in. It’s the suns’ fault. Maybe if there was only one, they’d have a chance, but instead its double the heat, double the light, beating down on everything. Cobb explains it to Din as they tuck the speeder into the shadows thrown by an outcrop of rocks; the other man listening silently, the slight tilt of his head the only sign that he’s listening at all. 

“So I found this place five, ten years ago,” Cobb says, jerking his thumb towards the rocky face of the cliff that is their destination. To the untrained eye, it’s nothing. Just the same red, teetering rocks that are scattered everywhere. But Cobb knows better. “Far as I can tell I’m the only one who knows ‘bout it. Never met anybody down there anyway.” 

Din’s head turns, slowly. Cobb imagines eyes of some indeterminate colour sweeping over the cliff face. Then, “There’s a cave,” he murmurs. Cobb grins, and slaps Din on the back.

“Can’t get anythin’ past you, huh?” 

Din’s staring at him. The slice of glass that makes up his visor shadowed and unreadable. “Not much,” he says, and Cobb snorts. The body under his hand is warm, and very solid. He pats at Din’s back one more time, and then lets his hand drop. Together, they set out for the cave. 

On Tatooine, any body of water is considered exciting. So it doesn’t occur to Cobb to be afraid that the pool he leads Din to is underwhelming; not until they’re both stood in front of it. He knows the cave is impressive; a dim, high-ceilinged thing, all made up in dark, mossy rocks in which pale quartz lurks and catches the light. Even the air is wet, and sweet. And Din, he seems to sink into it. Sunlight catching on his helmet, his body indistinct and blending into the deep shadows that pool between the rock formations.

In the cool darkness, something drips. Overhead, the top of the cliff has fallen through; letting a reedy vein of sunlight through into the dim cave. It starts out strong, and then diffuses; catching on the damp rocks, gleaming weakly on the surface of the pool. Its water is so clear that it looks shallow as a puddle, the bottom all filled in with dark rocks and red sand. Cobb watches Din take a step towards it, and lean forward. The reflection of his helmet is broken up into ripples a second later, as a drip falls from the ceiling to upset the glass-like surface of the water. 

“Huh,” he mutters, and glances up. “Cobb, you’re keeping this place all to yourself?” 

Cobb laughs, unsure. “Gotta be selfish about somethin’.”

Din looks away, the distant sunlight passing over his beskar as he peers up at the caved-in ceiling. And to Cobb’s surprise, he laughs. It’s the first time he’s laughed since Cobb had found him in the saloon, child-less and directionless. The noise bounces off the slick walls, until it seems like a crowd of deep-voiced men are all laughing at Cobb. “Selfish,” Din repeats, amused. “Maybe you can teach me about that.”

_You need it,_ Cobb thinks, staring at the back of Din’s helmet as he leans forward over the pool again. 

In the side bags on the speeder, Cobb has packed food, water, beers. The sunlight beyond the mouth of the cave feels all the more harsh after the cool air inside; hitting him like a blow as he emerges into it. He squints, huffs, puts a hand over his eyes to shade them as he treks out to the shade he’d left it in. 

Din is still in cave, still pacing around and peering at everything. It occurs to Cobb, as he lifts the food and drinks from the speeder, that this probably isn’t gonna be any different for Din than sitting outside Cobb’s house. It’s not like he’s gonna swim, unless he does it fully clothed? Not like he’s gonna crack open a beer and let himself get a little loose. Hell, he needs it. Din is edging a curious line between defeated and highly strung. Cobb suspects he really isn’t sleeping at all, and if he is, it’s in snatches. Last night, Cobb had heard him pacing in the living area. The night before that, the soft hiss of the front door opening had woken him from his light sleep. 

They haven’t talked about it yet. About everything that has passed since Din had bid him goodbye, almost a month ago now. Cobb had been quietly shocked to see him again; had resolved himself to the fact that Din was another one of those frustrating what-could’ve-beens the universe likes to throw at him sometimes. But there he was, sat in the saloon as if he’d never left. Silent, despondent; child-less. That was a bigger shock. Some small part of Cobb had thought Din would never really let the little one go.

Whistling, musing on selfishness, Cobb ducks back into the cave; letting the coolness settle over him as he winds through the short tunnel that connects the cave mouth to its belly. Some joke on his lips, halfway to slipping out to echo around the cave, something about getting a straw for the beer, something about making a hole in the beskar so they can eat together. Something stupid and ill-thought-out to make Din turn the visor to him in that long-suffering way that Cobb likes so much —

The joke dies in his mouth. Din is standing with his back to him, and Cobb is looking at brown hair, curled with humidity, at the bare nape of his neck, the curve of his cheek, his jaw — 

Din says, “Cobb, don’t make it a thing.” His voice is measured, serious. As if he’s not stood in that vein of sunlight with his whole fucking bare face glowing under it. Sunlight in his hair, in his eyes, and God — if the glimpse of the guy’s cheekbone is enough to make Cobb’s heart beat faster, this is gonna kill him, for sure. He can feel it hammering away underneath his breastbone as his face heats up and overflows; prickly shy warmth heading to his ears, to his neck, to his chest. 

He opens his mouth. Din’s eyebrows furrow. He closes his mouth. 

“You —” he manages, and stops entirely. 

“Would you believe you’re probably the friendliest face that’s seen me?” Din asks, and then huffs, glancing down at the helmet in his hands. The visor catches the light; throws it back onto his face. A gentle, watery gleam; skating over his cheek, the bridge of his nose, fetching up in the hollow of his eye socket, where it stays. Cobb feels like he’s taking Din’s face in so hungrily that it must show: he’s speechless, busy tracking the hard jut of his nose, the softness of his cheek, the scruff of his facial hair. His eyes are deep and brown, bottomless. 

Then, very slowly, his words filter down.

“I am?” Cobb asks, and then, “Who?”

“Oh.” Din shrugs, a smile tugging at his mouth as he flicks his eyes up to meet Cobb’s own. As expressive as he is with the helmet on, Cobb can’t help feeling bowled over by seeing emotions flicker over the man’s face. Hesitancy, hurt, grief. “I’ll tell you, sometime,” he settles on. “But for right now, I just want to cool off.”

He sets the helmet carefully down. Cobb can’t stop looking at him, even though he knows he should probably stop. Ridiculously, it feels as though he’s walked in on Din undressing. Like he’s seeing more than something as average as a face. Shit, every time he pulls his eyes away, they just bounce back; nothing holding his attention like Din. The sweet, downturned slope to his eyes, so brown that they’re almost black. It gives him a soft, gentle sort of look. Cobb would be kidding himself if he said it was what he was expecting the guy to look like. 

“Does it feel weird?” he asks, watching as Din wades into the water. His trousers are rolled up to his knees; the water casting wobbly, pale reflections of the sunlight onto his skin. 

“Yes,” he says, without hesitation. “It’s uncomfortable. Not something I’ll be getting into the habit of, but sometimes…” He trails off, and shrugs. Cobb watches the dip of his long eyelashes, watches a muscle in his cheek jump, and then is startled when Din glances over his shoulder and pins him with those deep brown eyes. “I think I can trust you,” he murmurs. His fingers touch nervously, idly, to the middle of his chest. “I think we understand each other.”

He’s not wrong. The alarming synchronicity of their fighting, the even keel Din had proven to be to Cobb’s own hot-headedness. And on some very basic level, the muddle of their gender. Though that is something that had only came out a few nights ago, with Cobb under the influence of a nighttime bowl and a little whiskey, and Din his own sadness. Some things are meant for talking in the dark. The next day Cobb had woken with a dry mouth and a banging headache, only to find Din’s armour bundled in a neat stack on the end of his sofa-turned-bed, and the man himself sat leafing through a book with all the hard lines and soft edges of him for the world to poke at. It’s a strange sight; like seeing a turtle unshelled. His shoulders are just as broad, but the rest of him is narrow; athletic; made for speed over power. Cobb can look at him now and feel that same soft surprise, even with a week of being around Din’s unshelled self. 

Din wades a little further into the water, neither waiting on nor needing a reply from Cobb. The water laps at his shins, and then wets the cuffs of his pants. The gently curling hair at the nape of his neck mades Cobb ache in strange, tender ways. 

The pool is blanketed on its banks by the same red sand that awaits them outside, only it’s darker, slightly cooler; less burning-hot when Cobb pulls his boots off to let his feet sink into it. The beer bottles find a home in the shallows of the water, clinking together gently as Cobb curses under his breath, trying to keep them upright. Din watches from the sand, having cooled his feet enough, it seems like. Offering helpful advice like, “The bottom’s sandy, just press them into it.”

“You think you’ve got the answer for everything, huh?” Cobb retorts, and is almost bowled over backwards into the blue water at the smile that flashes across Din’s handsome, stubbled face. 

“Most things,” he says, eyes playful, and Cobb laughs.

Before Din had left Mos Pelgo the first time, they had both found themselves together in the darkness of Cobb’s home, alone. The child was off somewhere, enjoying the festivities along with everyone else in town. Cobb had been fetching the armour he had promised Din. And Din had followed him, for some reason that Cobb still isn’t quite sure of. But in that moment, in the warm darkness, Din had touched Cobb’s wrist. Gripped it, almost. Thumb to the knot of veins there on the underside, fingers gripped over the jut of his wrist bone. The roughness of his glove, the heat that came through it as though to remind Cobb of the flesh and blood beneath it. Cobb remembers the thump of his own pulse, the way his dick had perked up between his legs; remembers the very deliberate way he had breathed, _Din?_

Nothing happened between them. Cobb wouldn’t be sitting a foot away from Din now otherwise. But he can feel it still, he thinks. That same fuzzy heaviness that had settled over them both, separating them from the rest of the world for that one dragging moment of touch. He can feel it when he and Din are alone in the house together. When he’s stoned and half-dozing in the sun, and wakes to find Din’s helmet turned in his direction. And now too, with the gentle light on Din’s bare face and the surprising warmth of his skin when he leans his shoulder to Cobb’s. Like muted electricity stringing them together. He supposes they’re both too long in the tooth for anything that zaps too hard. 

There’s lines around Din’s eyes that tell of a life hard-won. Cobb knows them because he sees the same in the mirror every morning. 

He wonders what had been going through Din’s mind in their shadowy moment together, adrenaline still singing through them both. What he’d seen to make him touch Cobb; whether he’d wanted to do it all day, but had only worked up the nerve to in that final, dragging moment together. He wonders, aimlessly, if whatever had been on Din’s mind then has resurfaced now. 

They swim; Din stripped to his underwear just like Cobb is, showing off so much brand new skin that Cobb doesn’t know where to look. He’s almost glad for when Din sinks into the water, and it renders his body vague and pale beneath the surface. For a while, they drift. Both of them enjoying the pool in silence; listening to the distant drip of water, the splash of it, and little else. Tatooine is complete silence. It urges the mind to wandering. Cobb thinks about dark chest hair sweeping across brown skin. He presses the pads of his fingers over the old old scars below his nipples. When Din rises from the water, dripping, Cobb watches him go. Wonders quietly at all the different ways people can be. 

“Hey,” he says, and Din’s face turns, just slightly. Just enough for Cobb to catch the familiar curve of his cheekbone. It settles him somewhat, to know that even if Din had his helmet on, Cobb would be seeing the same thing. It gives him the courage to say the next thing: his voice bouncing off the cave walls. “I’m glad you came here.” 

Din’s eyelashes dip. Muscles shift under his skin. “Me too,” he says, quietly, red sand sticking to his feet as he escapes to dry land. 

There’s a certain tiredness that comes from an afternoon of sun and swimming. Cobb and Din both drink a beer as they let the warmth in the cave dry their skin, and when Cobb begins to roll himself a slow cigarette, Din lays his cheek on his knees to watch. His helmet is at his side, as if he can’t bear to be far from it, and every time Cobb glances his way he gets a moment of dissonance at the sight. As if Din has unscrewed his head and placed it into the sand next to him. But brown eyes are blinking at him. The delicate purse of his mouth opening, speaking.

“Thank you for today,” he says, that steady voice of his. Din is oddly skittish without his helmet; bad at making eye contact, bad at controlling his expressions. It makes him a very easy read. Again, Cobb sees that grief; that hurt. 

“We don’t have to talk about it,” he murmurs.

Din’s eyes flick from the cave mouth to Cobb’s face; alighting on him for just a second before they skitter away again. Grateful, brief as a kiss. “Thanks,” he says, roughly. His hands flex against his bare shins, the knuckles standing out white as he grips his knees closer to his chest. “It’s just so strange,” he mutters, and Cobb makes a curious noise. “Isn’t it? That you can hurt so bad, and just keep going on.”

The helmet gleams in the red sand, their reflections wobbly shapes in the curve of the skull. Instead of what he wants to say, Cobb says, lightly, “Human body’s made of some pretty serious stuff.”

That earns him another glance, only this one lingers. Din’s eyes tracing over his face as he says, “Ha. Seems like it.” The corner of his mouth twitches, something warm and familiar in his gaze. It makes Cobb feel suddenly hot, like his body is a long glowing wire. Like if Din touched him they’d either fuse or snap. Din says, “Feel like I’ve dragged myself halfway across the galaxy, carrying it.” Looks down to his hands. “Pain, I mean.”

_Put it down here,_ Cobb thinks, desperately. _You don’t have to carry it anymore._

Out loud, he says, “I’ve felt the same way.” The brand between his shoulder blades begins suddenly to itch. “The only way out is through.” Cobb can’t touch his scar himself; he finds his mind recoils from it in a sick, visceral way. Makes him ache right down in the pit of his stomach, makes him feel strange and squeamish even thinking about it. Does Din recoil from some deep part of himself the same? 

Din is still watching his own hands, chin to the dip in between his pressed-together knees. Cobb watches them too. Broad and strong and flecked with scars; hands made for blood and war. But so gentle. Cobb thinks he’d need more than a long summer’s afternoon to try and puzzle out all the different sides to the man. More than a week, more than a year, even. It’d be a lifetime study. He doesn’t think Din would settle for that long. 

Again, that drifting thought. _Bury it out in the sand. Dig a hole and fill it over._ It’s something from his childhood; a fragment long ago flung off into the recesses of his mind. But watching Din, Cobb remembers. Hot days and long black nights, the smarting of a scar carved into that thin skin between shoulder blades. It never stopped hurting, really; and neither did Cobb. Too young to do anything about it, but just old enough to understand the endlessness of what kind of life lay in front of him. It rendered him useless, and for a time, he languished in it. Gave himself up to it. But isn’t that just a part of the process too?

His grandpa was superstitious. The kind of superstitious that grows well in a painful life, like moss in a cool, wet cave. He would tell Cobb nightly, _go to the desert, and dig a hole just big enough. Kneel down and whisper your truth into there._ The end result shifted with the day. Sometimes it would mean the secret would be kept forever. Sometimes it meant that your deepest desire would come true. Most of the time though, it meant an end to the hurt. 

Cobb knows he can’t tell Din that silly folktale. Still, he thinks about it. Turns it over in his mind as he watches Din settle his cheek to his knees once more; his face turned away from Cobb. Besides, Cobb had never tried it. The hole thing. You can’t wait around for the universe to hear you whispering painful things into sand. 

————

They swim again, once the light at the mouth of the cave is lilac and pale; the sunlight through the caved-in roof fading by the second. Night comes so quick. The only sound in the cave is the sound of water; the lap of it against the sandy banks, the splash as Cobb flicks a lazy wave of it in Din’s direction. It’s just dark enough that his eyes are black by the low light; his face reduced to a collection of shadowy abstract shapes. The bow of his mouth and the hard wedge of his nose; bright flickering eyes. He retaliates with a splash of his own, and for a while they indulge their long-lost teenage selves. Splashing great waves at the other, and laughing, spitting, grappling. Din is far stronger than Cobb; has him under the water as soon as he sets his mind to it. The whole cave rings with his laughter when Cobb resurfaces, blinking water from his eyes and cussing water from his mouth. 

“You fight dirty,” he accuses, and then lunges for him. Din, he snorts, hands slipping on Cobb’s wet shoulders as he fights him off. But there’s no purchase to be made underwater. Their legs slide against each other, knees bumping, feet tangling. Hands trying to find a place to grip, necks and jaws straining up to avoid catching a lungful of the green-tasting water. Cobb supposes it’s inevitable, then, what happens next. So inevitable he wonders briefly if he might’ve once whispered it into some red-sand hole, and buried it over as well as he could. 

Everything is cool water. Din’s lips, his cheeks, his bearded jaw. His body soft and hard all at once, pressed close to Cobb’s front. But then his mouth opens, and he makes a noise so soft and small it’s like he thinks the world is listening. _It’s just us,_ Cobb wants to say, as he presses his tongue to Din’s, and tastes him. Cool water no more. Inside, Din is burning; hot as the glowing wire he’s turned Cobb into. Fuse, or snap? Their hips bump together. Another noise pushes its way out through Din’s vocal cords; full of want. 

Helpless to it, Cobb clutches at Din’s ribcage, thumbing across the swell of Din’s chest as he grows bolder. He’s goosepimpled under the water, and shivering just so slightly. Imperceptible, if Cobb wasn’t holding him so close.

“Are you cold?” he murmurs, their foreheads pressed together. Faces so close together that Din is faceless once again.

He shivers, a full body thing. “No.” Din’s voice is rough. “I don’t know.”

Cobb touches his foot to the sandy bottom of the pool. Finds Din’s foot there too; keeping their heads above water. “C’mon,” he murmurs, and kisses Din again. A slow, soft thing that he never wants to end. 

The sand is hot, just as they’d left it. Din’s helmet gleaming in the fading daylight. Even out of the water, Din is still shivering; clutching hard in Cobb’s wet hair as they fall back into the sand. A tangle of cool, damp skin; of hair, roughwet cotton, teeth and mouths. Din kisses just about as well as you’d expect a man who’s spent his life in a helmet to kiss, but Cobb likes it. Likes it because it feels honest, it feels desperate; a real overspill of desire and want with no veneer of performance to it. The noises he makes are just as transparent; dragged up from some deep space inside of him when Cobb touches his chest, his stomach, bumps his knee between Din’s thighs to prop himself up over him. 

Cobb’s hard, but he doesn’t want more than this. To chase with his tongue the water that slides from Din’s hair to his throat. To kiss him, to swallow the noises he makes, to ache pleasantly with arousal at the way he keeps shifting his hips against Cobb’s leg. To show him just a sliver of selfishness, in the hopes that he’ll like it so much that maybe one day he’ll give over to it.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! you can find me on tumblr under the same username :~)


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